


Death and the fiddler

by TheCorvidCaws



Category: The Adventure Zone podcast
Genre: Depression, Pre taz, Suicidal Ideation, blood mention, death likes music, i just never know what to put in the tags, nothing too graphic, pre BOB, this really isn’t as dark as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 01:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14009541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCorvidCaws/pseuds/TheCorvidCaws
Summary: Death provides company and a little cold comfort to a sad and broken musician.





	Death and the fiddler

**Author's Note:**

> I really do write happy things, I just tend to only finish the more melancholy stuff.

Night settled over forest and farm and all was still. The sky was black velvet draped on a four poster, a hundred thousand pinpricks of light glittering through moth eaten fabric. It was grand and old and empty. 

And then a note was struck. 

Music drifted through the forest, rustling winter browned leaves and stirring the sleeping earth. Nothing awoke, there was no burst of life. The empty was not filled. In the music winter was recognized, the empty night acknowledged and sat along side. No one heard the song but it’s player. 

And Her. 

She did not sleep or huddle against cold. She heard the composition and felt it in her bones. And she felt curious. 

 

She found the musician in an empty house, sprawling structure abandoned to the trees, and let herself in. 

She didn’t make any sound for the musician to hear as she settled near. Even if she had, she doubted the player would have heard her, so engrossed was he in his music. So she watched him. The fingers of his left hand light and taunt on his bow, a battered violin tucked tightly between his chin and shoulder. Deep dents marred the fingertips of his right hand where they pressed across thin metal strings, some had burgundy stains of blood dried around cracked cuticles. His brow was pinched and his mouth pressed thin, perhaps as though he where in pain. 

And still he played. 

Time passed. Minutes, then hours. The song flowed around them both, through the air, warm and thick and tacky. Fresh blood from a deep wound. When the composition ended and the room didn’t feel any more empty. Just quieter. She felt it where her belly should be, the feeling like she had eaten an orange, peel and pith. 

The musician set down his instrument and opened his eyes. He didn’t seem at all surprised to realize he wasn’t alone. Not even surprised to see Her. His eyes looked as hollow as his cheeks and his ribs. He looked terribly tired. 

“Good evening” she said to the empty man. 

“Is it?” The musician asked in reply. 

“Perhaps not. It may be well into the morning by now.” She suspected that wasn’t at all how the musician meant it. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone lived here.” He muttered to the floorboards. 

“They don’t.”

They where quiet again for a very long time. The little wind that blew made the rafters creak like they may finally give in to age and rot. 

“Are you here for me?” This time the musician spoke first, his voice so flat as to barely register as a question. 

“Why would you think that?”

“Just hopeful I guess. It would save me the trouble.”

“Is that what inspired the piece?”

The hollow musician finally registered some emotion, aperently surprized by the question. 

“It was very beautiful.” She elaborated. “Was it a finale?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not here to take you.” She felt she should tell him. It seemed unfair to get his hopes up, however dark they may be, for though many said many things about her, she would never let it be said she was unfair. She was probably the only fair thing in life. 

“Do you think people will miss me?”

“I don’t know. I know very few people and probably none of the same ones you know.”

“Do you think I’ll regret it?”

“Again I can’t say. I only know most do.” 

The silence now felt meaningful. Maybe a little spiteful. 

“I think perhaps you should play another song.”

“Why?” 

“You play beautifully.” Was that not reason enough? It should be. In a perfect world it would be. 

The musician took up his fiddle again. 

“Any requests?”

“Whatever you like.”

It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard before in all her many many years. In some ways it was much like the one he played before, but not quite so empty. It was cold. It’s was aching. And maybe in some way, just the smallest bit hopeful. 

He played them through to the dawn.


End file.
